TRE soft shackle abuse

mrblaine

mrblaine

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Nov 20, 2015
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Location
Quail Valley, CA
Yesterday my neighbor drove his 90ish Suburban 2wd around to the back of his lot to get it out of the way for some work he was doing out front. We've had rain nearly every day for the last couple weeks and he buried it in the gopher hole riddled soft dirt now much up to the running boards. He asked me to give it a shot trying to get it out.
He had a receiver hitch and no pin, I have a receiver hitch, a TJ Unlimited with a draw bar and hitch ball, a kinetic rope from TRE and a bag full of soft shackles. The eye on the rope was too large to fit into his hitch so we used a soft shackle and a 5/8" Allen Wrench to connect the rope to him.
I know how to do snatch recoveries. I backed up about half the length of the rope, floored it in 4 low and gave him a jerk. It moved about a half inch or so. I backed up further, did it again, got another half inch. We repeated that over and over backing up closer to him each time until I was doing near full rope length runs as fast as I could get going about 20 times or so. I managed to move him about 2 feet and we threw in the towel when it because evident that we were just dragging the frame, diff, and both front A arms through the mud.

I fully expected the shackle to break and outside of a bit of knot tightening, it is little worse for wear. A floor jack and some wood to raise him up so we weren't dragging the frame finally got him out after a couple more hits.
 
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mrblaine said:
Yesterday my neighbor drove his 90ish Suburban 2wd around to the back of his lot to get it out of the way for some work he was doing out front. We've had rain nearly every day for the last couple weeks and he buried it in the gopher hole riddled soft dirt now much up to the running boards. He asked me to give it a shot trying to get it out.
He had a receiver hitch and no pin, I have a receiver hitch, a TJ Unlimited with a draw bar and hitch ball, a kinetic rope from TRE and a bag full of soft shackles. The eye on the rope was too large to fit into his hitch so we used a soft shackle and a 5/8" Allen Wrench to connect the rope to him.
I know how to do snatch recoveries. I backed up about half the length of the rope, floored it in 4 low and gave him a jerk. It moved about a half inch or so. I backed up further, did it again, got another half inch. We repeated that over and over backing up closer to him each time until I was doing near full rope length runs as fast as I could get going about 20 times or so. I managed to move him about 2 feet and we threw in the towel when it because evident that we were just dragging the frame, diff, and both front A arms through the mud.

I fully expected the shackle to break and outside of a bit of knot tightening, it is little worse for wear. A floor jack and some wood to raise him up so we weren't dragging the frame finally got him out after a couple more hits.
Click to expand...

Pictures or it didn’t happen 😉
 
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Sometimes a Caterpillar is the best plan.
It saves one damaging his jeep, or recovery gear, and teaches the stuck guy to think twice as to where he parks. Cuz it's expensive
We all do this to help out. It's the good guy way. But when we really need our jeep recovery gear on a trail its messed up because we are nice guys helping the neighbor.
 
OldButStillJeeping said:
Sometimes a Caterpillar is the best plan.
It saves one damaging his jeep, or recovery gear, and teaches the stuck guy to think twice as to where he parks. Cuz it's expensive
We all do this to help out. It's the good guy way. But when we really need our jeep recovery gear on a trail its messed up because we are nice guys helping the neighbor.
Click to expand...
I wasn't using my trail Jeep, nor my other one on 35's or the other stock one or Kat's daily or my tow rig. I have at least 10 soft shackles and 2 kinetic ropes so I was in no danger of tearing up anything that would put me out of commission. Were that not the case though, you are absolutely correct and I wouldn't have done it.

The where he parks is a bit tough. It was the gate into his back yard and he has driven it many times. Just not after a near constant 2 weeks of rain because we never get that, ever.

Heard a blurb on the weather news on TV the other day. This is the first February on record where there were no days with a temp above 70 degrees for the entire month.
 
Impressive! I've always wondered how tough those soft shackles were.

What kind of condition was the soft shackle in afterwards?
 
mrblaine said:
Yesterday my neighbor drove his 90ish Suburban 2wd around to the back of his lot to get it out of the way for some work he was doing out front. We've had rain nearly every day for the last couple weeks and he buried it in the gopher hole riddled soft dirt now much up to the running boards. He asked me to give it a shot trying to get it out.
He had a receiver hitch and no pin, I have a receiver hitch, a TJ Unlimited with a draw bar and hitch ball, a kinetic rope from TRE and a bag full of soft shackles. The eye on the rope was too large to fit into his hitch so we used a soft shackle and a 5/8" Allen Wrench to connect the rope to him.
I know how to do snatch recoveries. I backed up about half the length of the rope, floored it in 4 low and gave him a jerk. It moved about a half inch or so. I backed up further, did it again, got another half inch. We repeated that over and over backing up closer to him each time until I was doing near full rope length runs as fast as I could get going about 20 times or so. I managed to move him about 2 feet and we threw in the towel when it because evident that we were just dragging the frame, diff, and both front A arms through the mud.

I fully expected the shackle to break and outside of a bit of knot tightening, it is little worse for wear. A floor jack and some wood to raise him up so we weren't dragging the frame finally got him out after a couple more hits.
Click to expand...

If only you had a highlift jack to use... ;)
 
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I have really been enjoying my shorter 10ft tow rope. It's just about perfect for narrow winter roads and giving "assists" and gentle pulls.
 
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